Many of the residents of Rochester during its first 100 years were descendants of people who had come from various towns and cities in the British Isles, including some who had arrived in Plymouth on board the Mayflower.
However, one resident of Rochester, Joseph Look, born in 1776, had a different backstory. His lineage on the paternal side traced back to Nope, the Native American name for Martha’s Vineyard, where his grandfather, Samuel, was born in 1702. According to family records, Samuel was raised in “the wigwam of Zachariah Wonhosso at the Indian Town in Tisbury.” He lived there from the age of nine until, at the age of 21, when he received an inheritance left to him in his mother’s will. He moved to the mainland and settled in Rochester, where he was known as “Indian Samuel.” He married Ruth Savery, a Rochester girl, and became a husbandman (farmer). Samuel died in 1783.
As Samuel’s grandson, Joseph Look was 5/16 Native American. He married Susanna Ryder and had a homestead along Walnut Plain Road. In the 1850s, he built a mill in the vicinity of High Street and Walnut Plain Road. By the late 1800s, it was known as the Look and Steven’s Box Board, Stave and Shingle Mill. Joseph died in 1857.
The wooden pendant featured in h photo was worn by Look’s grandfather, Samuel, as a talisman when he left his native Nope for the mainland in 1724.
Keep it coming please